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free group (plural free groups)

  1. (group theory) A group that has a presentation without relators; equivalently, a free product of some number of copies of .
    Given a set S of "free generators" of a free group, let   be the set of inverses of the generators, which are in one-to-one correspondence with the generators (the two sets are disjoint), then let   be the Kleene closure of the union of those two sets. For any string w in the Kleene closure let r(w) be its reduced form, obtained by cutting out any occurrences of the form   or   where  . Noting that r(r(w)) = r(w) for any string w, define an equivalence relation   such that   if and only if  . Then let the underlying set of the free group generated by S be the quotient set   and let its operator be concatenation followed by reduction.
    • 1999, John R. Stallings, “Whitehead graphs on handlebodies”, in John Cossey, Charles F. Miller, Michael Shapiro, Walter D. Neumann, editors, Geometric Group Theory Down Under: Proceedings of a Special Year in Geometric Group Theory, Walter de Gruyter, page 317:
      A subset A of a free group F is called "separable" when there is a non-trivial free factorization F = F1 * F2 such that each element of A is conjugate to an element of F1 or of F2.
    • 2002, Gilbert Baumslag, B.9 Free and Relatively Free Groups, Alexander V. Mikhalev, Günter F. Pilz, The Concise Handbook of Algebra, Kluwer Academic, page 102,
      The free groups in   then all take the form  , where   is a suitably chosen absolutely free group.
    • 2006, Anthony W. Knapp, Basic Algebra, Springer, page 303:
      The context for generators and relations is that of a free group on the set of generators, and the relations indicate passage to a quotient of this free group by a normal subgroup.

Usage notes edit

  • If some generators are said to be free, then the group that they generate is implied to be free as well.
  • The cardinality of the set of free generators is called the rank of the free group.

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